An online synchronized content management system, such as Dropbox from Dropbox Inc. of San Francisco, Calif., allows its users to store and synchronize data on a cloud-based storage and across multiple client devices. Thus, for example, a user may upload a personal folder to the content management system, and then authorize multiple user devices to make duplicate copies of the folder on each of the devices. The instances of the folder can be kept synchronized across the devices. In other words, through the process of synchronization, the contents of the folder on multiple client devices can be kept identical. Even the slightest modification made by the user to one of the instances of the folder can automatically be replicated in other instances of the folder in a matter of seconds.
A content management system can allow the user to synchronize data stored on multiple devices. For example, a user may synchronize the files and folders stored on her laptop computer with the content management system. Later on, she may want to jump on to her tablet PC and also synchronize the data stored on the tablet PC with the content management system and the laptop computer. Before synchronizing any data with the content management system, a user typically has to authenticate her user account with the system by providing her username and password. This means that the user may have to enter the same username and password for every one of the devices or platforms that she may choose to use to synchronize or access data on the content management system.
Users may find entering the same username and password multiple times to be redundant and cumbersome to the user. For example, a user who is using a web browser on a desktop computer may type in her username and password to connect to the content management system. If she decides, however, to use the desktop client application that is installed on the same desktop computer, she may be asked to provide the same username and password to the client application to authenticate her user account again, even though she had just typed in the same information on the same computer a few seconds ago. Moreover, entering user credentials such as username and password can be more challenging on some devices. For instance, a set-top box connected to a television typically does not offer a keyboard input method, and therefore a user may have to use a remote control to enter text. Since a remote control has a limited number of keys and slow reaction time, it may be difficult to enter a long or complex string of text.